The Happily Ever After
By Avi Steinberg

This was an unusual read for me and quite the interesting topic that I did enjoy and wanted to especially read for Nonfiction November. Part memoir, essays and musings about romance novels, happy ever after's and also delving into his own life and his recent divorce. I found this funny and the honesty raw and appreciated.

This was definitely a different book than I was expecting. I was intrigued that a male author who specializes in intense researches would take on romance novels.

I am an avid romance reader and just found myself frustrated with this author's viewpoint. I don't feel this was a valid interpretation of what readers are looking for out of romance.

I did appreciate the attention that was placed in this work, but overall it did not work for me.

Thank you Double Day and Netgalley for the arc of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

I did enjoy reading this, but I think it tries to do a bit too much. Is it a peek into the workings of the romance industry? A defense of a much-maligned genre? A memoir about a man trying to write a romance novel? A memoir about a man realizing that happily ever after is within his grasp, and all he has to do is say yes to it? It's actually all of these things, but the pinballing back and forth between them in such a short book is liable to give a reader a bit of whiplash. It works well as a memoir of a nonfiction writer trying to find his voice in a different genre, and Steinberg's own love story is beautifully and sensitively told, but in order to work as a history of/defense of/backstage pass to the genre, it would have needed to go much more in-depth.

For example, despite the time Steinberg spends at the RT and RWA conferences and hanging out with publisher types and cover models, he only begins to scratch the surface of the enormous problem of racism in the romance world. One presumes the manuscript was turned in before the late 2019-early 2020 implosion of RWA, but perhaps the book could have addressed the efforts of the many romance authors who have spent years fighting racism and injustice in publishing and professional organizations.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

This is a book supposedly about the modern romance industry from a new male author’s perspective, as he navigates the trials of his own turbulent romantic life. But this book spends more time on the significance of Fabio’s 222 motorcycles than the importance of Nora Roberts’ books—EVEN THOUGH Nora Roberts has written more books than Fabio has motorcycles (225 books and counting at the time of this writing).

This is not an exaggeration on my part: the author spends a full page on the motorcycles, and calls Fabio a “sage.” Fabio, a man who once wrote one extremely underwhelming romance novel as a publicity stunt. I can see why our author here might find that a useful example, as it definitely feels like this memoir combined with the author’s Amish romantic suspense releasing in the same month is nothing but a naked cash-grab by someone only dabbling in what he thinks is a popular moneymaking genre.

This book was by turns shallow and infuriating, and it does no service whatsoever to the genre it pretends to interpret for a mainstream audience.

This book is interesting that a guy is trying to break into the romance area. Yes this is more female business but I found him to rude to the whole romance community . I also found it interesting that he used to be a mormon. But I didn't find this book that interesting and him going to romance con and meeting other writers. I just didn't like it like I thought that I would.

Interesting exploration at the genre and readers of romance. I enjoyed this man’s dive into a woman’s world!